A secret society is lurking at the Robert Austin Computer Shows.
As geeks pour into the monthly Bay Area event to network, get the latest tech
info, and gobble up new hardware and software, this clandestine group casually
sets up a bunch of non-descript, unmarked picnic tables.

Then they begin to munch on bagels.

That's when the others come. In ones and twos, holding
CDs marked "Red Hat" or "Debian," perhaps even lugging a Pentium box with
peripherals, they find their way to the Linux Cabal InstallFest.

At the InstallFest, members of the Cabal will help these lost souls install Linux
from scratch, or answer any bizarre question you could possibly imagine about the
best damn operating system of the twenty-first century.

But, as anyone sitting at those picnic tables will tell you, there is no Linux
Cabal.

The joke goes back to the old days of Usenet, a pre-Web collection of
newsgroups where Internet geeks once congregated to hash out ideas.
Usenet types used to half-seriously honor various individuals by accusing
them of being in a secret cabal that was running the Internet.

Ten years later, the weird, organized-chaos structure of Linux programmers
and user groups lends itself well to a similar kind of ironic paranoia about
who really controls Linux. Is there a Linux Cabal out there running
everything?

No. There is no Linux Cabal.

Except in San Francisco, where web hosting is available at locally-owned URL
http://www.linuxcabal.com/
nestled in the chambers of a San Francisco Internet café called Coffee Net.
The Linux Cabal website proudly announces that "the CABAL" will conduct a Linux
InstallFest each month at the Robert Austin show.

But when I approached the low-key group at the December 12 show and asked Duncan
MacKinnon about this Cabal -- he was in the middle of answering a question about
Korean character recognition under Linux -- he grinned and said, "There is no
Linux Cabal."

Solitaire MacIan, sporting a Miskatonic University t-shirt (a reference to HP
Lovecraft's horror fiction), was in on the conspiracy. "There is no Cabal," he
reiterated, "but if you want to know more about it, ask Rick Moen

"Yeah," said a random bystander, "ask Rick."

Rick, grinning broadly, materialized from behind a group of people watching file
names flash by on a monitor hooked up to somebody's battered old Pentium box.
Every surface on the Cabal's tables was taken up with similar monitors, piles of
unlabeled CD-ROMs, boxes with exposed hard drives, and, of course, stacks of
Linux bumper stickers.

When I introduced myself to Rick, I didn't even try to ask about the Cabal. "So I
understand there's no Linux Cabal," I said. "Could you tell me about that?"
Suddenly, I was surrounded by happy faces, eager to tell me the history of an
organization that no one will admit exists.

"It all started with the San Francisco PC user group," said Solitaire. "So many
people were going to the Linux meetings of SFPC that at a certain point it became
a matter of the tail wagging the dog. So about two years ago the Linux users
broke off."

Added Rick, "And we used the term CABAL to describe our user group. It
actually stands for 'Consortium of All Bay Area Linux.'"

Most of the CABAL members gather every two weeks at The Linux Cabal meeting room
to geek out, swap Linux tips, and hear Linux experts divulge their technical
secrets. Over the past few years, they've watched Linux grow from something known
only to a fringe group of hackers, to a global phenomenon.

"Things have changed really quickly," noted Duncan. "In early 1998, people were
coming up to us at this show and asking us what Linux was. Now they're asking us
very specific questions about how to use it."

A PC box is suddenly plunked down on the table next to us.

"I want to install Linux," said the new user, hand on hip.

Looking on, Duncan pretended to size the computer up with his hands, as if he
were a painter measuring a grove of trees before taking up his brushes.

"Let's Mandrake him!" exclaimed Rick gleefully, referring to the popular and
user-friendly Linux distribution called Mandrake.

"Ah yes, let's," agreed Duncan, rooting through a pile of CDs.

Meanwhile, Mike Higashi filled me in on one of the most controversial topics you
can possibly bring up among members of the Cabal: Linux distributions. (A
distribution is when a company -- like Red Hat or Caldera -- releases a
version of Linux compiled together with an installer, a graphical interface, a
file system, and often with some basic tools like X windows, etc.)

Although most Cabal-oids prefer Debian, they admit that this is not the best
place for new users to start. What about notoriously easy-to-use Red Hat Linux,
the hottest product from recently IPOed Red Hat?

"Distribution is a religion question," conceded Mike. "Red Hat raises especially
charged issues. Some would say that Red Hat's purpose is to make money for
themselves, and that's in conflict with the greater Linux community." So,
Mandrake remains the "easy" distribution of choice in this crowd.

For users who wonder whether they can get decent support for Linux, the Cabal FAQ says it all: "If you want the
type of support that is available from proprietary software companies, we will
try to find a consultant to sing to you on the phone for half an hour, then
give you the wrong answer."

Life in the Cabal isn't just geeking out on code, though. Rick, the closest thing
this revolutionary cell has to a founder, also helped organize some spirited
pieces of Linux guerilla theater.

Perhaps most famously, he was instrumental in
pulling off "Windows Refund Day," in which hundreds of
people descended on Microsoft's Foster City offices and requested refunds for the
unwanted copies of Microsoft Windows that had come pre-installed on their
computers.

Laughed Rick, "We came as customers, hat in hand, and said we're only doing what
you told us to do in your Windows license agreement. It happens that we're coming
en masse with a brass band, but it's the thought that counts."

For their efforts, according to Rick, all they got was a canned speech from a
Microsoft corporate rep. Then, when the boisterous crowd refused to disperse, the
Microsofties locked out their floors on the elevators.

Although the Linux open source community has always been anti-corporate, and
virulently anti-Microsoft, members of the Cabal aren't fazed by the recent IPO
frenzies associated with their beloved operating system. "Because the community
controls the source code, nobody can push the community around," asserted Rick.
"There's no conflict between corporations and the user community because there
doesn't have to be."

The heady cooperative spirit of the InstallFest is testimony to Rick's point.
Nick Jennings, a Linux aficionado totally unconnected with the Cabal, wandered by
the Cabal tables, then stayed to help somebody install Red Hat. "I stopped by and
just figured I'd help out," he explained.

You can't get much more communitarian than that.

Annalee Newitz is a writer and Linux groupie in San Francisco.tabloid@jps.net.